Editor’s note: This commentary is by Judy Olinick, of Middlebury, who is recently retired as coordinator of the Middlebury College Russian, German and Japanese Studies departments.
The Windsor High School Board has made a serious mistake in firing Principal Tiffany Riley.
Though the news story is hard to follow and the accusatory back-and-forth is too long to recount, it seems clear that Riley was ousted for what was deemed political incorrectness in a personal Facebook post after a disagreement with a former student, Iyanna Williams, and a couple connected with the school, the Rockwoods, with whom Williams was staying. Williams and her hosts first urged the principal to remove an American flag painted on land near the school in honor of commencement, contending that it had become an “anti-minority symbol.” Riley refused to remove the U.S. flag, but offered to fly a Black Lives Matter flag at the ceremony, asking whether Williams or Erin Rockwood had one. Apparently no Black Lives Matter flag was provided or flown at commencement and Williams and Rockwood complained to Riley and Superintendent David Baker. (One can imagine the public outcry, had Riley acceded to the request to remove the American flag.)
Riley affirms her sympathy with the principles of the Black Lives Matter movement; but, like many other supporters, she objects to what she considers a forced choice between Black Lives and “All Lives.” To those at the heart of the movement, the distinction is critical. While “All Lives Matter” would have seemed an obvious and unobjectionable statement a few years ago, BLM supporters insist that the phrase is currently used to signal rejection of the Black Lives Matter movement, regardless of a speaker’s actual intent.
While Riley’s original Facebook post and subsequent explanatory post were meant to clarify her thoughts regarding BLM, she was accused by Williams, the Rockwoods, some administrators, school board members and others of being insufficiently committed to racial equity within the school and insufficiently apologetic for her first post. Williams and some friends declared Riley “insanely tone-deaf” (a phrase which seems to me to defy semantic analysis and to have no literal meaning), and members of the school board asserted without substantiation that her Facebook post showed her to be “ignorant, insensitive and a racist.” These pronouncements appeared in early reports of the incident.
Riley had already been assistant principal at Windsor High School for two years and principal for five years. She had recently been reappointed for two years with a raise. Clearly, she was well-known and appreciated by the school community. Surely, if known interactions with students or parents had revealed that she was a racist or prejudiced against minority students, her reappointment would have been contested or blocked. But no one seems to be alleging or documenting any actual offense beyond her two Facebook posts, which appear to be defensive explanations of her personal thoughts in response to unanticipated attacks.
Most likely there is a clause in Riley’s contract listing grounds for dismissal. Do they include violations of political correctness in personal social media posts — and, if so, how and by whom are these violations to be judged? I believe that Riley’s rights as a public employee, including a reasonable right to freedom of personal expression, have been egregiously violated and that she has been wrongfully dismissed and slandered by the school board. If her suit against the board is settled fairly, she should be awarded her full salary for the period of her terminated contract and significant punitive damages.
It is appalling to see a Vermont school board engage in such infantile and unprofessional behavior, potentially destroying the career of a well-trained and dedicated educator against whom no concrete misdeed is even alleged. And it is frightening to see a publicly elected board brand someone a racist simply because she does not express her thoughts precisely as some wish, or because they vary slightly from prevailing popular opinion. American society is currently threatened by growing numbers of dangerous genuine racists, whom we really do need to expose and denounce and from whom we do need to protect our children. No shred of evidence has been offered that Tiffany Riley is one of them. Allegations such as this one are properly dubbed witch hunts and cause grave and lasting damage.
Beyond the injustice to Riley and continuing discord within the school community, this sad incident also illustrates the folly of dueling with slogans (such as Black Lives Matter vs. All Lives Matter). Slogans have their rhetorical uses, but they are a poor substitute for a true exchange of ideas through the honest use of language, the most definitive human attribute.
